Students recently elected new ASUPS senators for the 2015-2016 academic year.
Despite reporting satisfaction with the actual people elected, one campus group was dismayed by the newly elected Senators at Large. That is, they were dismayed by the term ‘Senators at Large.’
Campus social justice group SADBOYS (Students Against Derogatory Bodies Of Young Senators) issued a statement on their Facebook page last Wednesday.
“While we stand behind newly elected senators from a leadership standpoint, we find it very difficult to support this title. The title, ‘Senator at Large,’ is disturbing—nay, systematically discriminating. That is why it is our official position that ‘Senator at Large’ should be changed to ‘Senator of Indiscernible Size,’” SADBOYS president Jeremy Chaplin wrote in the post.
“What? No,” current Senator at Large, Lacye Mangum commented, in response to the SADBOYS’ Facebook statement, “the ‘large’ in Senator at Large is simply referring to the group of people whom we are representing. It’s the same concept of a first year or a sophomore senator, but more general in spectrum.”
Senator Mangum’s statement served as fuel for the SADBOYS’ political fire.
SADBOYS president Chaplin responded to Mangum’s comment.
“Thank you for illustrating my point exactly, Ms. Mangum,” he wrote. “When we start ‘generalizing’ this ‘spectrum,’ we end up grouping people by body shape. Where are the Senators at Small? Where are the Senators at Tall and Gangly? You can’t say that ‘large’ represents a majority of our students’ bodies, because, even if that were true, it’s discriminating and downright mean.”
Senator Mangum commented again on the post.
“Literally, what?” she wrote, receiving 47 likes.
However, Mangum’s support from fellow students had not stirred any sense of dismay in Chaplin.
“She can drown me out with all of her fancy friends on Facebook,” Chaplin said, “but let’s see what happens when we take this issue to the streets in protest.”
“Again—literally, what?” Magnum replied when informed of his statement. “This is a non-issue. I’m not trying to be combative, I’m just genuinely confused and trying to explain to him that Senator at Large has literally nothing to do with the size or shape of a human body. Good Lord, can someone else please try explaining this to him?”
Chaplin began hanging unapproved posters around campus on Monday, calling students to join him and other members of SADBOYS in a protest outside of the ASUPS office the following Monday.
“Here’s what we’re going to do,” Chaplin said, “we’re all going to gather around 5 p.m. in Upper Marshall Hall. We’ll start out the way we start out all of our SADBOYS meetings, which is holding hands and chanting ‘I don’t know what my senator’s body looks like because I’m body-blind. Whatever my senator’s body looks like is absolutely fine.’”
Chaplin then explained that he and anyone else who wished to organize around the cause would walk over to the ASUPS office holding signs that read, “My Senator is of an Indiscernible Size, and So Should Yours.”
Chaplin also urges fellow students to sign his petition calling for the name change. So far the petition only has four names, one of which is the commonly fake moniker “Seymore Butts.”
